She briefly closed her eyes, and when she opened them again her stare was fiercely competitive.
“Right. The competition. I came to tell you that I’ve chosen my team. I’ll take the women—you take the men.”
“A battle of the sexes, huh? All right, if that’s the way you want to play it,” he said, still trying to get himself under control.
“No, that’s the way I plan to win it,” she said. “I never lose.”
“Neither do I, Gorgeous Girl,” Mark said, getting angry. “But guess what? One of us is going to. And it won’t be me.”
She took a deep breath and straightened her spine.
“Yes. It will. This job is mine and there’s no way I’m going to let you steal it,” she growled, then strode from the room.
“I’m not going to steal it. I’m going to earn it,” he said to her departing back.
And he would. He just hoped he didn’t have to crush her in the process.
Becky looked at the team gathered around the tempered glass conference table. All eight women in the SBD creative department were looking at her expectantly.
“Raise your hand if David has ever belittled your abilities,” she said.
Eight hands shot into the air.
“That’s what I thought. Now, raise your hand if you’d like a chance to prove that chauvinist pig wrong.”
Again hands shot into the air, this time accompanied by hoots and hollers.
Becky smiled. “Good. Today’s your lucky day, ladies. We’re going to win a two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar piece of business—and we’re going to do it without the help of a single man.”
Her crew burst into spontaneous applause.
“Now, let’s get down to business. Cheri. What do you think of when I say delicious low-fat Greek yogurt?”
“Um...breakfast?” the brunette answered.
Becky turned to the whiteboard and wrote “BREAKFAST” in caps.
“Good. What else? Tanya?”
“Healthy.”
Becky wrote it down.
“What else? Anyone?”
“A shortcut to skinny,” Jessie said.
“Oh, I like that,” Becky said, writing it down and underlining it. “Let’s explore that.”
“Not just skinny. Strong,” someone else said. “Because it’s got lots of protein in it.”
“Popeye!” Tanya said.
Becky laughed. And then inspiration struck.
“Forget Popeye. This yogurt is for Olive Oyl. It’s Olive’s secret weapon for kicking Popeye’s ass!” she said.
The women around the table laughed.
“Now we’re on to something,” Jessie said. “Here—give me the marker.”
Becky handed it over and Jessie drew a ripped Olive Oyl, flexing her guns, one foot resting on top of a prone Popeye.
“Eden Yogurt. For the super-heroine in you,” Jessie wrote.
Becky stepped back with a grin on her face, feeling the giddy high that always struck during a good brainstorming session.
“Ladies, we are on to something here. Really on to something. Something no guy would think of. So let’s make sure they can’t steal it. Tanya, do you know where there’s any black paper?”
She nodded.
“Great. Go get it. We’re going to make ourselves a good old-fashioned, women-only fort!”
* * *
A short while later all the conference windows were blocked off with thick black paper.
Jessie handed Becky the sign she’d made. It read, “Women at Work. No Boys Allowed” in pink glitter.
Becky skipped over to the door, tape in hand. She was just about to stick it up when she saw Mark approach. Opening the door, she waggled her sign at him.
“We’ve already come up with an idea that’s going to kick the ass of anything you can come up with,” she said, and grinned.
“Oh, really? Then why all the secrecy?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, you’re already in the boys’ club. We thought it only fair that we create a girls’ club with an equally exclusionary policy.”
“I’ll have you know I don’t take part in any boys-only activities. I far prefer the company of women.”
“Well, right now the women of this agency do not want your company. So go play with the boys. We’ll let you back in after we beat you and all your testosterone-addled buddies.”
He sighed. “Becky, Becky, Becky. How many times do I have to tell you? You can’t beat me. I’m magic.”
She sighed in return. “Mark, Mark, Mark. How many times do I have to tell you? You can’t beat us. Talent beats magic every time.”
“You go ahead and believe that,” he said. “But soon you’ll be kissing up to your new boss.”
“Nope,” she said. “Soon you’ll be kissing this.” And she slapped her denim-clad rear.
“You’d like that,” he said.
“I would. Especially if you did it while I was booting your butt out of the office,” she said, slamming the door.
He didn’t need to know how very much she would love to kiss every inch of his magnificent body—and to have him kiss hers in return. Again.
She would beat him and then he’d be gone, taking his career-endangering sexual magnetism with him.
She had to. If she didn’t she’d be lost forever.
* * *
Mark sat behind his heavy oak desk, the eerie white light of his monitor providing the only break in the darkness.
He was trying to polish an ad layout, but every time he turned his attention to the screen Becky’s mocking face filled it.
Accusing him of being in the boys’ club was pretty rich. Truth was, he didn’t have a single close friend—in fact, he didn’t have any male friends. Not real ones, anyway. The last time he’d had a best friend he’d been in sixth grade. His mom had still been single and they’d still been coexisting fairly peacefully, even if she’d never stopped moaning about how tough it was to be a single parent.
Then Bill had entered their lives, and everything had gone down the toilet.
Mark called up Facebook and scanned his friends list, searching for the familiar name. It didn’t take long. He clicked onto Tom’s profile, telling himself he was just curious. Not lonely.
Tom’s page was filled with pictures of his goofy grinning kids and the short, plump brunette who had married him. He wasn’t rich. Or particularly successful. But he did seem happy.
Mark leaned back in his chair and sighed. If things had been different—if he’d stayed in the working-class neighborhood where he’d been born instead of being forced to move into the frigidly upper-class world his mom had married into, where nothing mattered more than money—would he have a life like Tom’s?
Would